Brite

People always ask me what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. I tell them it’s like flying a plane while you’re still building it—and the jet is on fire.

I lived through one of those fires in March 2020. I had just become CMO at Pad Split, a co-living startup. Covid hit, and – as you might imagine – suddenly no one wanted to share rooms anymore. We went from raising a Series A to wondering whether to lay off half or two-thirds of the team. It was brutal.

In desperation, I started outsourcing to talent abroad. We already had been doing this for our dev team but at the time, the idea of looking for marketers abroad was brand new.

I found an email marketer in Turkey willing to work for a third of the price of a US hire and rebuilt the entire team on the back of his output. The plan worked. Within two and a half years, I was managing a team of 25, with only three based in the US.

That experience opened my eyes. Remote work wasn’t going anywhere, and global talent was vastly underutilized. That’s about the time I decided to start Brite—a recruiting agency helping startups find top-tier marketing talent in Latin America. My pitch was simple: “Talent is everywhere.”

Bootstrapping my own startup was never something I expected to do. Before startups, I spent nearly a decade climbing the corporate ladder, including a stint at Amazon. I’d set a goal to become a CMO before 40. I made it at 38. Once I got there, I felt nothing. I realized I didn’t want the title—I wanted control over my life. I didn’t want to be stuck on the VC hamster wheel anymore.

So I bet on Brite. I bootstrapped it from day one. No website. No entity. Just me and my Gmail address, helping a friend hire two marketers at half the expected cost. That first deal showed me what was possible.

But I also knew that building a real business meant holding a high bar. So we built a rigorous four-step interview process, filtering thousands of applicants down to the best 1%. Quality became our differentiator.

People assumed I’d raise money—I mean, I came from Amazon and had worked with VCs. But I didn’t want the pressure. I wanted freedom and sustainable growth. And despite what some think, Brite isn’t a lifestyle business. Less than two years in, we’re doing over $1 million a year. It’s very real.

Entrepreneurship is far from glamorous. It’s a meat grinder. Ninety percent of my job is sales. You don’t need to be a genius, but you do need grit. No silver bullets, no playbooks. Just persistence and belief.

Most of my family still doesn’t really get what I do—some think I’m a door-to-door salesman. But they’re proud I built something from scratch. And honestly? So am I.

If anything I’ve said sticks with you or you’re interested in learning more about Brite, send me a DM on LinkedIn. I’m happy chat more.